Alchemist
"Stop whimpering. Lazarus didn't cry, and he went and ''died before getting back up."'' :- Alchemist ministering to a wounded Templar. Tactical Analysis * Mending Flesh and Steel: Alchemists can use their communicators to instruct injured infantry and the crews of damaged vehicles in surgery and repair, effectively allowing them to heal and repair at a distance, albeit slowly. * Hands-on Work: Alternatively, Alchemists can take matters into their own hands and go to work much more quickly, but they must move next to the units in question to heal them. * First, Do No Harm: Although Alchemists take the precaution of wearing semi-bulletproof nun's habits, they are still squishy infantry and carry no weapons, leaving them helpless against attack. Background "These Talon lunatics are driving me insane. There, I said it. You hear me, inquisitor who's no doubt reading this? You people are ''stupid!'' I let myself be talked into joining this cult because I was promised I could put my expensive education and experience working with the most advanced warships on the goddamn planet to use on something more worthwhile than building weapons to help a bunch of idiots who are, in no particular order, incompetent, foolish, supremely arrogant, and moustache-twirling cartoon villains in their quest to conquer the world. Look, I betrayed everyone and everything I ever knew, and if you'll just come out and say that because I'm a traitor to the Empire I'll always be a traitor, I might even understand that. I knew my choice was a dangerous one. I thought it was a worthwhile choice because the Order wants something more than conquering the planet and making like it's nineteenth-century Europe only with everyone outside Japan playing the part of the African natives. I was promised that my expertise would be valued, that the Order of the Talon valued all of its members in any capacity they could serve to their best ability. I was not promised that I'd be spending years learning how to be a good little Christian wind-up doll while receiving a crash course in first aid and brute field repair so other people - men, of course - can make a difference. Look, I understand that medics and field techs are important. I really do. Most of the other women in this retreat are genuinely nice, and want to help. Many of them are even quite pretty, despite how unflattering these habits are. Oh, and how obscenely impractical they are for, you know, LIVING IN A GODDAMN DESERT. Do you lunatics ''want all the women in your order keeling over from heat exhaustion after fifteen minutes outdoors? Worse, you call the job alchemy. News flash, asshats: we've been calling it chemistry for a couple hundred years now.'' Okay, so I thank God your medical know-how is reasonably up to date, even if you aren't big on cybernetic enhancement and I was sentenced to a week of fasting and prayer in isolation in my room when I suggested it to the abbess. Frankly, I was expecting leeches. Although really. Women do deserve contraception, and the insistence in the sexual health seminars that it's a tool of the devil was why I walked out of the room and was sentenced to spend the week after my week of fasting and prayer on putting my engineering education to use by cleaning out the monastery cesspool. Between that and my other infractions, I've got the next two months booked solid with punishments for ''"Behavior unbecoming of a Sister of Saint Mary and flagrant disrespect for authority." Make that three months once they read this, probably.'' Dear inquisitors, I don't want to learn how to walk other people through fixing cranky engines and patching bullet holes. I WAS DESIGNING MACHINES MORE COMPLICATED THAN ANYTHING I'VE SEEN HERE THREE YEARS AGO, IDIOTS. All I want is to put my education, my passion, my experience, and otherwise the things I am very good at to ''"productive" use. What little I've seen of your operations suggests that you do have some top-notch engineers in your little cult. Let me talk shop with them.'' If you don't think a woman can do more than tend to men's needs, test me. Let the pious women of God here do their job. I serve no one, least of all the Lord God, in such a limited role. You have your alchemists. But we can do so much more for the Order and for the Lord God than this." :- From the journal of Masoko Okamura, three weeks after recruitment into the Order. Just the Stats Category:Units